Meghan Markle will never be the queen of England, but during her interview with Oprah, which aired Sunday night, she won the title of World’s Drama Queen.
As my colleague Tyler O’Neil pointed out, Markle seems to think she has had it worse than any royal ever has. The former B-list actress just can’t even anymore at all and begs for privacy while telling the whole world all about it in an interview with the most important interviewer of the last several decades.
Independent journalist Megyn Kelly was having none of it.
Kelly also noted that Markle and her husband pretended that “no royal has had it worse in the press than they have,” ostensibly because of racism. “Give me a break. Have you ever seen such privileged people wallowing in their own (perceived) victimhood like this?”
Sure, the press can be brutal. They’re in the habit of building people up with the express purpose of, at some point, tearing those same people down. At the New York Times, they eat their own while hollowing out their entire industry. The only way to win the media game, it seems, is not to play.
But Markle hires a professional photographer for every occasion and makes sure the media knows all about it.
Besides, it’s not difficult to come up with a few royals, around 17 or 20 of them, who had it worse even than bad press. Like, a lot worse.
Including Scottish monarchy, a total of 17 monarchs in the British Isles have been murdered, assassinated or executed away from the battlefield, making it a very dangerous job indeed. Perhaps the most famous of these is Edward II who was supposedly murdered in Berkely castle when a red hot poker was inserted into his anus.
That’s a bit worse than having George Clooney at your wedding, though how much worse is up to one’s opinion of Clooney’s performance in Batman & Robin.
This number could be raised to 19 if we also count Richard II who was placed in Pontefract Castle and most likely murdered there, and Edward V, one of the Princes in the Tower who were suspected of being smothered to death. There are also question marks hanging over the death of William II, Rufus, who was killed by an arrow whilst hunting in the New Forest, the exact same location his nephew was killed three months previously. The only person with him, William Tyrell, fled abroad after the incident. But the king was so universally loathed that there was no further enquiries concerning his death and he was buried without any ceremony.
So, yeah. This doesn’t even count Henry VIII’s wives, who tended to fare pretty poorly. Many of his friends did as well.
The Sussexes, who sought to improve their privacy by moving to the Entertainment Capital of the World, don’t seem to know much about history. Markle doesn’t seem to know much about the present, either. During the interview, she claimed she didn’t even bother to find out what the royal duties would be before she married Harry. If that’s true, it doesn’t reflect well on her. Marrying a royal comes with a package deal that includes some photo ops and the odd castle here and there. You take the good, you take the bad, and so forth. Either way, you Google it.
I’m no apologist for royalty. As a Texan, I’ve had anti-royalism coursing through my veins from 1776, 1821, and 1836 — the trifecta of resisting royals and dictators. But there is such a thing as tradition, and there once was such a thing as perspective. Wokeism is killing both, and Markle is nothing if not woke as woke can be.
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